"Intellectuals , it is supposed, have a duty to speak truth to power. But as Orwell’s mellifluously sinister O’Brien in 1984 would no doubt remind us, power doesn’t have to listen to anything it doesn’t want to listen to. You can speak truth at power and you can speak truth about power, but speaking truth to power is a dangerous business".
---Arundhati Roy
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
East Cleveland, Ohio
We're seeding new projects and initiatives in the City of East Cleveland. Stay tuned.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Untitled
In the pursuit of justice for the convicted, truth is sometimes wrapped in differing shades of gray.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Seeding and Planting Flowers
Sometimes the work of changing cities and neighborhoods require sustained belief and an acknowledgement of identifying locally grown and often overlooked assets. I cannot recall the author, but I recall the quote very well: "what is important is often invisible to the eye".
Monday, April 13, 2009
No Flowers Today
No Flowers Today
The sun is bright,-the air is clear,
The darting swallows soar and sing,
And from the stately elms I hear
The bluebird prophesying Spring. (Longfellow)
Sometimes there’s blood in the Georgia dusk
Left by a streak of sun,
A crimson trickle in the Georgia dusk.
Whose blood?...Everyone’s. (Hughes)
I.
Spring is a time of planting. A season of growth and rebirth. Whether its tulips or lilacs, or daffodils- it’s a time of renewal. A cherished friend of mine sent me beautiful pictures of blooming flowers in upstate New York; the splendor, the fascination and mysteries of life. Whether flowers are blooming in Forest Hills Park, or an urban garden in my friend’s yard in North Collinwood.
As we anticipate the arrival of a full spring in Cleveland, the anticipated splendor of a hopeful spring was shattered last Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday, when someone robbed Jason Cummings as he returned from a neighborhood barbershop.
“Lay it Down,” the gunman said, in street language for “you’re being robbed”.
On a cold Saturday sixteen months ago, Ja-Shaun Richardson and a friend left home to the corner grocery store. Ja-Shaun was robbed, and as he turned to run away, he was shot and killed. In between the murders of Ja-Shaun and Jason’s, there were many, many others. In this season of birth and renewal, we must also remember and do justice in the honor of families forever affected by these terrible crimes.
I’m reminded of a ceremony held in Washington, DC in 1994, to honor the lives of individuals killed and impacted by handgun violence by displaying 38,000 pairs of shoes to represent lives loss, families impacted and neighborhoods held hostage within their homes and in their neighborhoods throughout the country.
I recall the event, and can’t quite remember how I missed the event; I should not have missed it. You see, I lost a brother to handgun violence; another brother has been involved in criminal activity involving guns and my father survived an armed robbery, but lost his grocery business.
II.
Eric Erikson once remarked, “…that the most deadly of all possible sins is the mutilation of a child’s spirit” and I would add, the sin of continuous, death by handgun violence. Handgun violence crosses all boundaries, but within the context of this essay, I agree with The Reverend Dr. Calvin Butts, III, pastor of Abyssinian Church in Harlem, NY when he said: “I am concerned deeply that a GROUP of Americans is fast becoming extinct and I’m one of them. I am an African American man.”
These generational losses represent a collective suffering and profound pain of city residents. It is not just the loss of Ja-shaun and Jason----it is how the loss of their lives, and thousands of others, the impact on their families, communities, and their collective loss of individual potential as well as the perpetrator and their families in our neighborhoods.
III.
Cleveland has always existed in a perpetual state of emergency: poverty, crime, educational failure, neighborhood distress, joblessness, among others. Despite past and present mayoral administrations, this state of emergency is generational; it defies seasons; the inn and box score for the Indians; and the timeline of success for the Cavs from Bingo Smith to Lebron James.
No amounts of “change” have been able to stem the perpetual state of emergency of our children and families in crisis. Whether distinguished speakers fill the City Club dining room or pack conference halls, the state of emergency exists whether no acknowledge it by small blocks of space in the newspaper or a 10 second spot on the news.
Albert Camus, in the Plague, perfectly characterized the context of the situation and environment facing our lack of an adequate response to this crisis—it is as true now, as it is his book of fiction: “…small official notices had been just put up about the town, though in places where they would not attract much attention. It was hard to find in these notices any indication that the authorities were facing the situation squarely. The measures enjoined were far from Draconian and one had the feeling that many concessions had been made to a desire not to alarm the public”.
IV.
Everyday, families cautiously maneuver on skating ponds of cracked ice, the crumbing of hope, and on the illusory promises of electoral change. Decades of callous disregard for neighborhoods, a myriad of mental health issues, ineffectual public policy, neighborhood instability, family dysfunction and general lawlessness alongside routine access to guns and the exploitative nature of violence in popular culture and in the media have brought us to the bottom.
At one point, I subscribed to historian Barbara Tuchman’s notion that “wooden headedness” by political leadership often confines one to a singular source of action despite facts and reality as the order of the day. She is right, but I think, Michael Ignatieff is more on point when he uses Shakespeare’s King Lear to argue how we chose to respond to events that happen: “…We never know a thing till we have paid the price to know it, never know how much is enough until we have had much less than enough, never know what we need till we have been dispossessed. We must be blinded before we can see”.
V.
Somehow, someway, today, with a supernatural inspiration for the possible, we must rekindle the crumbled hopes of this current and future generation. We must do this. We have no choice.
We can continue to put smiley faces on media slick campaigns promoting regional economic development initiatives, downtown housing, the Euclid Corridor or Midtown.
Or, we can demand a policy re prioritization of what will not only save lives, but policies and programs that save our people and secure a healthy and sustainable future for all.
The sun is bright,-the air is clear,
The darting swallows soar and sing,
And from the stately elms I hear
The bluebird prophesying Spring. (Longfellow)
Sometimes there’s blood in the Georgia dusk
Left by a streak of sun,
A crimson trickle in the Georgia dusk.
Whose blood?...Everyone’s. (Hughes)
I.
Spring is a time of planting. A season of growth and rebirth. Whether its tulips or lilacs, or daffodils- it’s a time of renewal. A cherished friend of mine sent me beautiful pictures of blooming flowers in upstate New York; the splendor, the fascination and mysteries of life. Whether flowers are blooming in Forest Hills Park, or an urban garden in my friend’s yard in North Collinwood.
As we anticipate the arrival of a full spring in Cleveland, the anticipated splendor of a hopeful spring was shattered last Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday, when someone robbed Jason Cummings as he returned from a neighborhood barbershop.
“Lay it Down,” the gunman said, in street language for “you’re being robbed”.
On a cold Saturday sixteen months ago, Ja-Shaun Richardson and a friend left home to the corner grocery store. Ja-Shaun was robbed, and as he turned to run away, he was shot and killed. In between the murders of Ja-Shaun and Jason’s, there were many, many others. In this season of birth and renewal, we must also remember and do justice in the honor of families forever affected by these terrible crimes.
I’m reminded of a ceremony held in Washington, DC in 1994, to honor the lives of individuals killed and impacted by handgun violence by displaying 38,000 pairs of shoes to represent lives loss, families impacted and neighborhoods held hostage within their homes and in their neighborhoods throughout the country.
I recall the event, and can’t quite remember how I missed the event; I should not have missed it. You see, I lost a brother to handgun violence; another brother has been involved in criminal activity involving guns and my father survived an armed robbery, but lost his grocery business.
II.
Eric Erikson once remarked, “…that the most deadly of all possible sins is the mutilation of a child’s spirit” and I would add, the sin of continuous, death by handgun violence. Handgun violence crosses all boundaries, but within the context of this essay, I agree with The Reverend Dr. Calvin Butts, III, pastor of Abyssinian Church in Harlem, NY when he said: “I am concerned deeply that a GROUP of Americans is fast becoming extinct and I’m one of them. I am an African American man.”
These generational losses represent a collective suffering and profound pain of city residents. It is not just the loss of Ja-shaun and Jason----it is how the loss of their lives, and thousands of others, the impact on their families, communities, and their collective loss of individual potential as well as the perpetrator and their families in our neighborhoods.
III.
Cleveland has always existed in a perpetual state of emergency: poverty, crime, educational failure, neighborhood distress, joblessness, among others. Despite past and present mayoral administrations, this state of emergency is generational; it defies seasons; the inn and box score for the Indians; and the timeline of success for the Cavs from Bingo Smith to Lebron James.
No amounts of “change” have been able to stem the perpetual state of emergency of our children and families in crisis. Whether distinguished speakers fill the City Club dining room or pack conference halls, the state of emergency exists whether no acknowledge it by small blocks of space in the newspaper or a 10 second spot on the news.
Albert Camus, in the Plague, perfectly characterized the context of the situation and environment facing our lack of an adequate response to this crisis—it is as true now, as it is his book of fiction: “…small official notices had been just put up about the town, though in places where they would not attract much attention. It was hard to find in these notices any indication that the authorities were facing the situation squarely. The measures enjoined were far from Draconian and one had the feeling that many concessions had been made to a desire not to alarm the public”.
IV.
Everyday, families cautiously maneuver on skating ponds of cracked ice, the crumbing of hope, and on the illusory promises of electoral change. Decades of callous disregard for neighborhoods, a myriad of mental health issues, ineffectual public policy, neighborhood instability, family dysfunction and general lawlessness alongside routine access to guns and the exploitative nature of violence in popular culture and in the media have brought us to the bottom.
At one point, I subscribed to historian Barbara Tuchman’s notion that “wooden headedness” by political leadership often confines one to a singular source of action despite facts and reality as the order of the day. She is right, but I think, Michael Ignatieff is more on point when he uses Shakespeare’s King Lear to argue how we chose to respond to events that happen: “…We never know a thing till we have paid the price to know it, never know how much is enough until we have had much less than enough, never know what we need till we have been dispossessed. We must be blinded before we can see”.
V.
Somehow, someway, today, with a supernatural inspiration for the possible, we must rekindle the crumbled hopes of this current and future generation. We must do this. We have no choice.
We can continue to put smiley faces on media slick campaigns promoting regional economic development initiatives, downtown housing, the Euclid Corridor or Midtown.
Or, we can demand a policy re prioritization of what will not only save lives, but policies and programs that save our people and secure a healthy and sustainable future for all.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
“A Radical Thing”: Educational Perspectives on Race in the Age of Obama
“A Radical Thing”: Educational Perspectives on Race in the Age of Obama by Zoe Burkholder — February 09, 2009
Speaking to a reporter from the Washington Post a few weeks ago, President Obama remarked, "There is an entire generation that will grow up taking for granted that the highest office in the land is filled by an African American." He continued, "I mean, that's a radical thing. It changes how black children look at themselves. It also changes how white children look at black children. And I wouldn't underestimate the force of that.” As an educational historian who studies racial discourse in schools, I can tell you that Obama is absolutely correct. Americans are about to radically alter the way they see, understand, and speak about race on an everyday basis thanks to the presidency of Barack Obama. Especially in places like schools.
Speaking to a reporter from the Washington Post a few weeks ago, President Obama remarked, "There is an entire generation that will grow up taking for granted that the highest office in the land is filled by an African American." He continued, "I mean, that's a radical thing. It changes how black children look at themselves. It also changes how white children look at black children. And I wouldn't underestimate the force of that” (Fletcher, 2008)
As an educational historian who studies racial discourse in schools, I can tell you that Obama is absolutely correct. Americans are about to radically alter the way they see, understand, and speak about race on an everyday basis thanks to the presidency of Barack Obama. Especially in places like schools.
In my forthcoming book, Reconstructing Race: A History of Race, Reform, and Civil Rights in American Schools, 1900-1954, I argue that schools function as powerful racializing institutions in American society. As the largest state institution dedicated to knowledge production and social reproduction, public schools have played a critical role in shaping the way Americans understand not only specific definitions of race, but also the muted rules of racial etiquette. For instance, teachers and textbooks define for students who is “raced”—a shifting category. The fact that teachers in the first half of the twentieth century used to mull over the peculiar racial traits and habits of Italian, Irish, and German kids whereas today all of these students would be viewed as members of the same “Caucasian” race is one good example of the fluidity of racial discourse in American schools.
Besides specifying who is racially distinct from an imagined “white” norm, teachers have also crafted particular messages about just what it means to be raced. For example, a white librarian in 1935 casually observed that African American children were “naturally noisy,” elaborating, “The keen intellectual curiosity of, for instance, the Jewish child, that makes him work so hard on scientific problems, is not found to any marked degree in the colored child” (Bacon, 1935, p. 258). Teachers across the country echoed these racialist sentiments, such as one who explained that in order for “Negro” children to enjoy literature,
Gold and jewels in abundance must sparkle, satin robes must trail through the pages, giants must be very tall and terrible and the fire-breathing dragon must slay his fair quota of minor heroes before (after desperate struggles) his seven horrible heads are hacked off by the intrepid youngest son. (Brunot, 1932, pp. 159-160)
The pages with teaching journals are filled with first-hand accounts of classroom practice like these—vivid illustrations of the way that teachers, like nearly all Americans, viewed race as a determining aspect not only of intelligence but also of more subtle qualities like intellectual curiosity or a preference for sensational tall tales. That such subtle messages about racial difference are still present in American classrooms should come as no surprise, as a host of provocative studies by scholars including Mica Pollock and Amanda Lewis demonstrate (Pollock, 2005; Lewis, 2003).
But even more important than elucidating who is part of a racial minority and what this distinction means, American schools define the racial knowledge of the ideal, “educated” citizen. This is where things get really interesting because it means that no matter what students believe to be the “truth” about race, they learn at a young age what teachers expect them to know. It is not that students readily absorb the lessons on race presented in schools—in fact the opposite seems to be true. The point is that students learn to recognize, and if necessary, to mimic the lessons on race they are taught in school if only to cash in on the cultural capital of performing as educated citizens.
Now consider for a minute my own experiences, not as an historian of race in American schools, but instead as the mother of a kindergartner. My son, Dexter, has absorbed the unrestrained enthusiasm of his parents for Barack Obama over the course of the past year. He has sat through televised debates and read through children’s books on the new President, even enjoying spoofs of Obama on YouTube like the recent “If You Voted For Me” parody of Beyonce’s famous “All the Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)” song. Back in November, when Obama was elected, my son came home from school and announced in a solemn voice that Barack Obama was going to be the first African American President of the United States. While this was certainly true, I had not emphasized this point at home in weeks as we had been discussing more pragmatic aspects of Obama’s candidacy. The formal way my son delivered the news tipped me off to the fact that his teacher had made this announcement in school that morning.
As well she should have; the point is that Obama’s presidency is already generating a host of new race talk in our schools. Consider for a minute how things might have been different if John McCain had been elected President. Chances are, Dexter’s teacher would not have pointed out McCain’s racial identity to her kindergarten classroom that morning.
More recently, and well before this became the clarion cry of newscasters during the inauguration, I was astonished when Dexter quietly told me that Barack Obama becoming President was one way that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream had come true. The awkward way he put the words together suggested he did not pick this one up in school. Turning to my son, I asked him where he had heard that idea. He shrugged, and stunned me again by quoting MLK’s most famous speech from memory, carefully articulating: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” To be fair, this was a speech my son and I had read together, and even watched together on the internet, but I had no idea he had committed it to memory.
“And what do you think that means?” I pressed him.
“It means that color doesn’t matter, it’s what you do and who you are that matters.” Dexter said, as he scooted out of the room before I could ask him anything else.
My two young children, who are white, will grow up with a completely revised sense of the meaning of race in America thanks to the presidency of Barack Obama. Racial ideologies, after all, are created and informed through all sorts of processes, from national leaders to popular culture, scientific theories to judicial rulings. As educators, however, it is important to remain vigilant about the one thing we do have the professional capacity to influence: the social production of race in schools. Like Obama, I wouldn’t underestimate the force of that.
References
Bacon, F.A. (1935). Epaminondas at the library. Elementary English Review, 12(9), 257-259.
Brunot, E. (1932). The negro child and his reading: A public library point of view. Elementary English Review, 9(6), 159-160. Also see, Coolidge, A.E. (1932). Origins of our Negro folk story. Elementary English Review, 9(6), 161-162.
Michael A. Fletcher, M.A. (2008, January 19). President-elect sees his race as an opportunity. Washington Post.
Amanda Lewis, A. (2003). Race in the schoolyard: Negotiating the color line in classrooms and communities. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Pollock, M. (2005). Colormute: Race talk dilemmas in an American school. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Speaking to a reporter from the Washington Post a few weeks ago, President Obama remarked, "There is an entire generation that will grow up taking for granted that the highest office in the land is filled by an African American." He continued, "I mean, that's a radical thing. It changes how black children look at themselves. It also changes how white children look at black children. And I wouldn't underestimate the force of that.” As an educational historian who studies racial discourse in schools, I can tell you that Obama is absolutely correct. Americans are about to radically alter the way they see, understand, and speak about race on an everyday basis thanks to the presidency of Barack Obama. Especially in places like schools.
Speaking to a reporter from the Washington Post a few weeks ago, President Obama remarked, "There is an entire generation that will grow up taking for granted that the highest office in the land is filled by an African American." He continued, "I mean, that's a radical thing. It changes how black children look at themselves. It also changes how white children look at black children. And I wouldn't underestimate the force of that” (Fletcher, 2008)
As an educational historian who studies racial discourse in schools, I can tell you that Obama is absolutely correct. Americans are about to radically alter the way they see, understand, and speak about race on an everyday basis thanks to the presidency of Barack Obama. Especially in places like schools.
In my forthcoming book, Reconstructing Race: A History of Race, Reform, and Civil Rights in American Schools, 1900-1954, I argue that schools function as powerful racializing institutions in American society. As the largest state institution dedicated to knowledge production and social reproduction, public schools have played a critical role in shaping the way Americans understand not only specific definitions of race, but also the muted rules of racial etiquette. For instance, teachers and textbooks define for students who is “raced”—a shifting category. The fact that teachers in the first half of the twentieth century used to mull over the peculiar racial traits and habits of Italian, Irish, and German kids whereas today all of these students would be viewed as members of the same “Caucasian” race is one good example of the fluidity of racial discourse in American schools.
Besides specifying who is racially distinct from an imagined “white” norm, teachers have also crafted particular messages about just what it means to be raced. For example, a white librarian in 1935 casually observed that African American children were “naturally noisy,” elaborating, “The keen intellectual curiosity of, for instance, the Jewish child, that makes him work so hard on scientific problems, is not found to any marked degree in the colored child” (Bacon, 1935, p. 258). Teachers across the country echoed these racialist sentiments, such as one who explained that in order for “Negro” children to enjoy literature,
Gold and jewels in abundance must sparkle, satin robes must trail through the pages, giants must be very tall and terrible and the fire-breathing dragon must slay his fair quota of minor heroes before (after desperate struggles) his seven horrible heads are hacked off by the intrepid youngest son. (Brunot, 1932, pp. 159-160)
The pages with teaching journals are filled with first-hand accounts of classroom practice like these—vivid illustrations of the way that teachers, like nearly all Americans, viewed race as a determining aspect not only of intelligence but also of more subtle qualities like intellectual curiosity or a preference for sensational tall tales. That such subtle messages about racial difference are still present in American classrooms should come as no surprise, as a host of provocative studies by scholars including Mica Pollock and Amanda Lewis demonstrate (Pollock, 2005; Lewis, 2003).
But even more important than elucidating who is part of a racial minority and what this distinction means, American schools define the racial knowledge of the ideal, “educated” citizen. This is where things get really interesting because it means that no matter what students believe to be the “truth” about race, they learn at a young age what teachers expect them to know. It is not that students readily absorb the lessons on race presented in schools—in fact the opposite seems to be true. The point is that students learn to recognize, and if necessary, to mimic the lessons on race they are taught in school if only to cash in on the cultural capital of performing as educated citizens.
Now consider for a minute my own experiences, not as an historian of race in American schools, but instead as the mother of a kindergartner. My son, Dexter, has absorbed the unrestrained enthusiasm of his parents for Barack Obama over the course of the past year. He has sat through televised debates and read through children’s books on the new President, even enjoying spoofs of Obama on YouTube like the recent “If You Voted For Me” parody of Beyonce’s famous “All the Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)” song. Back in November, when Obama was elected, my son came home from school and announced in a solemn voice that Barack Obama was going to be the first African American President of the United States. While this was certainly true, I had not emphasized this point at home in weeks as we had been discussing more pragmatic aspects of Obama’s candidacy. The formal way my son delivered the news tipped me off to the fact that his teacher had made this announcement in school that morning.
As well she should have; the point is that Obama’s presidency is already generating a host of new race talk in our schools. Consider for a minute how things might have been different if John McCain had been elected President. Chances are, Dexter’s teacher would not have pointed out McCain’s racial identity to her kindergarten classroom that morning.
More recently, and well before this became the clarion cry of newscasters during the inauguration, I was astonished when Dexter quietly told me that Barack Obama becoming President was one way that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream had come true. The awkward way he put the words together suggested he did not pick this one up in school. Turning to my son, I asked him where he had heard that idea. He shrugged, and stunned me again by quoting MLK’s most famous speech from memory, carefully articulating: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” To be fair, this was a speech my son and I had read together, and even watched together on the internet, but I had no idea he had committed it to memory.
“And what do you think that means?” I pressed him.
“It means that color doesn’t matter, it’s what you do and who you are that matters.” Dexter said, as he scooted out of the room before I could ask him anything else.
My two young children, who are white, will grow up with a completely revised sense of the meaning of race in America thanks to the presidency of Barack Obama. Racial ideologies, after all, are created and informed through all sorts of processes, from national leaders to popular culture, scientific theories to judicial rulings. As educators, however, it is important to remain vigilant about the one thing we do have the professional capacity to influence: the social production of race in schools. Like Obama, I wouldn’t underestimate the force of that.
References
Bacon, F.A. (1935). Epaminondas at the library. Elementary English Review, 12(9), 257-259.
Brunot, E. (1932). The negro child and his reading: A public library point of view. Elementary English Review, 9(6), 159-160. Also see, Coolidge, A.E. (1932). Origins of our Negro folk story. Elementary English Review, 9(6), 161-162.
Michael A. Fletcher, M.A. (2008, January 19). President-elect sees his race as an opportunity. Washington Post.
Amanda Lewis, A. (2003). Race in the schoolyard: Negotiating the color line in classrooms and communities. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Pollock, M. (2005). Colormute: Race talk dilemmas in an American school. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Street Scapes
I had a conversation with a friend today about extending the street scape of University Circle, Inc in Cleveland that would extend through East Cleveland to the border of Euclid. Often, change begins on the small things and the easiest to do. Other things like urban gardens, healthy play spaces for children, are on the canvas by the Mayor as well.
The City of East Cleveland and University Circle in Cleveland are neighbors, and share excellent university and health care and transportation options among many other things. In Instructions for the Cook: Recipes for the Cook by George Nemeth and Jack Ricchiuto, they examine small acts---the idea that transformation to be occur its does not need to happen on a grand scale. Small acts help individuals and communities realize the larger dream. As Jack would say," small is the new big".
The City of East Cleveland and University Circle in Cleveland are neighbors, and share excellent university and health care and transportation options among many other things. In Instructions for the Cook: Recipes for the Cook by George Nemeth and Jack Ricchiuto, they examine small acts---the idea that transformation to be occur its does not need to happen on a grand scale. Small acts help individuals and communities realize the larger dream. As Jack would say," small is the new big".
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